Wednesday, April 8, 2015

BY DAWN FEAKES
The artists have been working all season for this: earning spots in the finale. We're down to four and there can be only one, er, three. (I'm still bitter about Adam being eliminated last week.) Will Team Laura sweep all the spots or can Team Rayce squeak in with golden boy Logan? Let's do this.

Field trip! The Final Four meet Mackenzie in Hollywood's Old West town for their Spotlight Challenge: re-imagine a classic Old West character as a steampunk cyborg. Because steampunk is so specific, they've a special guest mentor, Glenn Hetrick. Oh goody, he's not only a judge but also the resident expert so no pressure. Julian knows nothing about steampunk and we all keel over from shock. Glenn gives them advice to focus on the two elements of steampunk: fashion and technology of a previous civilization powered with steam. It has to make sense so don't glue gears on randomly. Everyone ready? Choose your character!

Logan gets the Saloon with the barmaid and immediately envisions a booze gauge arm. Emily gets the Undertaker and her first though is to break up human form with a coffin chest. Darla gets the Blacksmith and no idea where to start as she doesn't know anything about Westerns, steampunk or cyborgs. This is problematic. Julian picks the Bank robber and designs his as an expert thief with a cyborg weapon arm.Design
Darla's struggling with the concept piece and is getting very frustrated. Emily begins sculpting the chest coffin. Logan decides to make his barmaid extremely well-endowed to almost caricature-like proportions. Rayce goes Mother Hen on Logan so they nix the giant jugs. Fanboys everywhere have a sad. Julian's never done fabrication (of course) so he needs a lot of coaching from Laura. Seriously, Julian has never done anything before; how exactly did he make it onto the show? Mr. Westmore arrives and gives his very sage advice: basically if you don't have the time to do it right, don't try because half-assing this challenge isn't going to work. He tells Emily that the focal point is the face, not the chest so she needs to knock that out of the park. She hadn't figured out the face yet so this sends her into another breakdown. Get it together, girl. You got this. Logan wants to do beauty crossed with cyborg which is a very smart decision and Emily opens the chest mold early but luck was with her and it's done. Rats, no drinks tonight.

Day 2
Julian still has to sculpt the face and cowl along with fabricating the the arm and Laura's trying to be positive but it's just painful. Emily slept on her face design and came up with a beard/mask that is steampunk and cyborg. This girl is simply amazing. Darla goes for the more classic steampunk of embedded eye pieces rather than goggles and Logan does a science project with tubing and glue with his shadow. Julian, why did you not practice any of this stuff before coming on the show? Have you never seen "Face Off" before or something?

Application Day
Julian's arm is in the house! But will it work? Darla still has some fabrication to do. Logan's facial prosthetic looks odd and asymmetrical so he has to fix that. Emily face has some wonky edges so she doesn't panic but instead opts for a highly stylized look. Darla employs flocking to get the translucent skin tone look with sweat to really sell the blacksmith. Logan's chest piece is tubing to nowhere so something got lost in translation. Julian has no clue so Laura suggests using a cornmeal wash to give a rusted look which works but lawdy, Julian. This is just sad.

Last Looks
Must go faster, must go faster, paintpaintpaintpaintpaint.

Reveal Stage
Emily - Her Undertaker is uber creepy/cool. She nailed the look.

Julian - Dr. Franenstein, I presume. I have no idea what's going on here but the arm stayed on.

Logan - Joan Crawford on a plastic surgery binge.

Darla - Christian Kane. That is all.

The judges like Emily's paint job, like Julian's concept but agree that the execution is lacking, really don't like Logan's chest piece (guess the giant jugs would have been a better option after all) but do like the bitchin' arm, and are impressed by Darla's embedded eye pieces and centerpiece forge where his heart should be.

Winner
Emily

Finale
Emily, Darla. Logan

Eliminated
Julian

There we have it, our finale is set. Team Laura is sending 2, Team Rayce, 1. The finale will be so difficult that they're bringing back all of the eliminated contestants to help. More Ben? Dammit. But Adam will be there so I guess it makes up for it. The finalists will be creating four characters that could star in a film from one of three genres: Fantasy, Sci-Fi, or Post-Apocalyptic. Wow, Mackenzie wasn't kidding when she said the was the most difficult final competition ever!

Join Syfy next Tuesday at 9 p.m. ET to find out who will be crowned Champion of Season Eight and Supreme "Face Off" Champion of the World' in 'The Dream Team.'

1 comments:

I always find it fascinating when contestants come on the show and say things like..."Oh I don't know how to mold"...or "Oh I don't know how to fabricate" or my most favorite..."Oh I don't know anything about Zombies (or any other genre)" Hello!! You are on Faceoff! And you can't get crappy Steampunk past Glenn! He is the master!